{"quotes":[{"text":"The platypus, as it turns out, derives its DNA from a menagerie of creatures. When its genome was fully decoded, it was found only to be 80% mammalian, and had genes found previously only in reptilian, bird, amphibian, and fish DNA.","author":"B.C. Chase","tags":["biology","dna","evolution","gene","genetics"],"id":14396,"author_id":"B.C.+Chase"},{"text":"The pleasure or the benefit that the object of our deed derives from it is every now and then greater or even more important than the one we derive from the deed.","author":"Mokokoma Mokhonoana","tags":["advantage","altruism","benefit","charity","compassion","empathy","gene","genes","genie","ghandi","humanity","humor","humour","mahatma-ghandi","mandela","mercy","mother-teresa","nelson-mandela","object","philosopher","philosophy","pleasure","satire","satirist","selfish","selfishness","selfless","selflessness","social-criticism","sympathy","teresa","unselfish","unselfishness"],"id":41834,"author_id":"Mokokoma+Mokhonoana"},{"text":"Every single good person is a good person for their own sake, not for the sake of humanity, not even for the sake of another human being.","author":"Mokokoma Mokhonoana","tags":["altruism","charity","compassion","empathy","gene","genes","genie","ghandi","good","humanity","humor","humour","mahatma-ghandi","mandela","mercy","mother-teresa","nelson-mandela","philosopher","philosophy","satire","selfishness","selflessness","social-criticism","sympathy","teresa","unselfishness"],"id":86433,"author_id":"Mokokoma+Mokhonoana"},{"text":"We are, or rather our natural desire to evade pain and to attain pleasure is, the primary reason we do or say every single thing we do or say.","author":"Mokokoma Mokhonoana","tags":["altruism","charity","compassion","empathy","gene","genes","genie","ghandi","humanity","humor","humour","mahatma-ghandi","mandela","mercy","mother-teresa","motivation","motive","motives","nelson-mandela","pain","philosopher","philosophy","pleasure","satire","satirist","selfish","selfishness","selfless","selflessness","social-criticism","sympathy","teresa","unselfish","unselfishness"],"id":93420,"author_id":"Mokokoma+Mokhonoana"},{"text":"In some cases, it is the woman’s stomach—not her heart—that has left her man for another.","author":"Mokokoma Mokhonoana","tags":["altruism","breakup","breakups","charity","compassion","debt","divorce","empathy","fail","failure","feed","food","gene","genes","genie","ghandi","heart","hearts","humanity","humor","humour","job","kitchen","loss","love","lover","lovers","mahatma-ghandi","man","mandela","marriage","men","mercy","mortgage","mother-teresa","nelson-mandela","nutrition","occupation","partner","partners","philosopher","philosophy","poverty","rent","rental","romance","satire","satirist","security","selfish","selfishness","selfless","selflessness","social-criticism","spouse","spouses","starvation","stomach","sympathy","teresa","tummy","unemployment","unselfish","unselfishness","woman","women"],"id":115241,"author_id":"Mokokoma+Mokhonoana"},{"text":"It is humanly impossible to be selfless. As a matter of fact, human beings are inherently selfish.","author":"Mokokoma Mokhonoana","tags":["altruism","charity","compassion","empathy","gene","genes","genie","ghandi","humanity","humor","humour","impossibility","impossible","mahatma-ghandi","mandela","mercy","mother-teresa","nelson-mandela","philosopher","philosophy","satire","satirist","selfish","selfishness","selfless","selflessness","social-criticism","sympathy","teresa","unselfish","unselfishness"],"id":119523,"author_id":"Mokokoma+Mokhonoana"},{"text":"No single bad person regards themselves as a bad person.","author":"Mokokoma Mokhonoana","tags":["altruism","bad","charity","compassion","empathy","gene","genes","genie","ghandi","good","humanity","humor","humour","mahatma-ghandi","mandela","mercy","mother-teresa","nelson-mandela","philosopher","philosophy","satire","selfishness","selflessness","social-criticism","sympathy","teresa","unselfishness"],"id":153429,"author_id":"Mokokoma+Mokhonoana"},{"text":"The fundamental biological variant is DNA. That is why Mendel's definition of the gene as the unvarying bearer of hereditary traits, its chemical identification by Avery (confirmed by Hershey), and the elucidation by Watson and Crick of the structural basis of its replicative invariance, are without any doubt the most important discoveries ever made in biology. To this must be added the theory of natural selection, whose certainty and full significance were established only by those later theories.","author":"Jacques Monod","tags":["alfred-day-hershey","alfred-hershey","avery","biology","crick","discovery","dna","evolution","francis-crick","francis-harry-compton-crick","gene","gregor-johann-mendel","gregor-mendel","hershey","importance","james-d-watson","james-dewey-watson","james-watson","mendel","natural-selection","nobel-laureate","oswald-avery","oswald-theodore-avery","science","watson","watson-and-crick"],"id":165954,"author_id":"Jacques+Monod"},{"text":"Suddenly I realized that a cell's life is controlled by the physical and energetic environment and not by its genes. Genes are simply molecular blueprints used in the construction of cells, tissues, and organs. The environment serves as a 'contractor' who reads and engages those genetic blueprints and is ultimately responsible for the character of a cell's life. It is a single cell's 'awareness' of the environment, not its genes, that sets into motion the mechanisms of life.","author":"Bruce H. Lipton","tags":["awareness","biology","consciousness","gene"],"id":203603,"author_id":"Bruce+H.+Lipton"},{"text":"Now the leatherback turtle overcame the heat issue via a simple, but evolutionarily impossible solution; it is the only reptile that possesses fatty insulation known as brown adipose tissue, and the only reptile that regulates a high body temperature. This brown adipose tissue is the expression of the UCP1 gene, and, aside from the leatherbacks, is found only in mammals, amphibians, and fishes. Not one other reptile has UCP1.","author":"B.C. Chase","tags":["biology","dna","evolution","gene","genetics"],"id":271234,"author_id":"B.C.+Chase"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":23,"pages":3,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}